Jenny Rebecca Michael Rose
by zevie
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Dallas Winston is about to become an older brother, whether he wants it or not. Yes, that's right, this is an attempt at a moderately realistic Winston sister-fic. All comments welcome. Rated for language.


**Jenny Rebecca Michael Rose**

xxxx

**A/N: **In response to a challenge from a writing board I belong to, I present to y'all my Winston sister-fic. Debatably AU; it's possible, but not probable, that this could exist in the same timeline of the novel. All comments and criticisms welcome, naturally.

**Disclaimer:** S.E. Hinton owns Dallas, and owns the idea of Rose, and … well, she owns this universe, anyway.

xxxx

He was out.

He always forgot how good it felt to come home after spending time in jail. Even a shithole like the one he lived in had its perks and he never knew it so much as when he had the fresh memory of a jail cell to compare it to.

Dallas rolled off his bed – his soft, unstained bed – and landed with a thump on the floor beside him. A nice, clean, wooden floor that didn't smell like piss.

It took him a few seconds to get his wind back, but it hadn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would. And anyway, no one had come to check on him.

He stared up at the ceiling and wondered if he had it in him to live on the streets, permanently. At least until he could find a place of his own in New York. He sure as hell didn't want to go back to Tulsa.

He banged his fist as hard as he could on the hardwood floor. That definitely didn't hurt; it felt damn good to do. Still, no one came.

He pulled himself up, retrieved the cigarettes from under his mattress and went to the window to light up. If she was determined to give him the silent treatment, he may as well take advantage of being alone and have a smoke.

And anyway, he was too old for temper tantrums.

The cigarettes were all he had left, but at least they were new. She'd taken the old ones, along with his knife and a skin mag and the little money he had, when they'd got back from the jail. Bitch had gone through his room like a terror, throwing clothes and ripping sheets and screaming at him every time she'd found something he shouldn't have. Then she'd cried and shaken him until Phil made her stop. Not for his sake, but for hers.

He'd been almost afraid of her, though he could take her easily now. He was almost taller than her, and definitely stronger.

Besides, the bitch was knocked up.

It took him a few tries to light the cigarette; his lighter was shit. He'd have to get a new one before he got back to Tulsa. He sure as hell hoped they had Kools down there.

Maybe he'd been more afraid for her than for himself. He'd been so angry he could have fought back and even if he'd only gotten one hit in before Phil stopped him, that might be all it took to do some damage. Dallas knew without a doubt that he could hurt her, and he'd wanted to so badly in those few minutes when she'd grabbed him and yelled at him like he was a kid. He _wasn't_ a kid and she knew it_._

He leaned against the window frame and looked down towards the streets. It always made him a little dizzy for a minute, but it was better than looking forward the few feet into Mrs. O'Leary's apartment in the building next door. She hated him almost as much as his mother did.

Dallas took a drag off his cigarette and thought over again what she'd said.

She had enough to deal with these days with the baby on the way, and the rent, and her shifts at the diner, and cooking and cleaning and everything else, and did he have to go and get himself into trouble? _Again?_ And again, and again …

Well, who's fault was it then, if it wasn't his? Why did he have to be such a goddamn –

She'd call him whatever she damn well wanted. He was her kid, and when he fucked up, she got to tell her kid he fucked up.

Well, fine then, he doesn't want to be a kid? Well, that's just goddamn dandy. She had no room in that house for a _man_ who couldn't pull his weight, who wouldn't go to school and learn so he could get a decent job, who'd been arrested _five goddamn times_ in the last three years.

Dallas had thought she'd kicked him out, but the bitch couldn't even do that right. She told him to get his ass back in his room and pack his bags, because she couldn't deal with all the trouble of raising him _and_ a newborn baby. He could be Hal's goddamn problem.

Phil had agreed. He'd even pay for the ticket back to Tulsa.

Dallas smashed the butt of his cigarette into the windowsill. Fuck her. Fuck them both.

He helped out plenty. She'd never had to pay a babysitter, even when he'd been ten and she'd be out until one in the morning working, cuz he could take care of his own damn self. So he didn't go to school. So he wasn't like the good kids. He could cook and they couldn't; he'd done that enough for himself when she'd had to take a double shift.

He could take a job like she or Phil had when he was older and be just fine. Neither of them were geniuses either.

He wanted another cigarette but he had to save them. He didn't have any money for more, thanks to that bitch.

Maybe he did cost money, but he brought some in too, when he could. There'd been that time before Phil, when it was just her and him in the tiny apartment, and they'd been short on the rent again, so much so that she'd cried and thought they were homeless, and he'd risked his goddamn neck climbing over to Mrs. O'Leary's apartment to steal enough money to save them. He'd told his mother that he'd stolen it from her wallet a long time ago, but he'd give it back because she needed it.

She'd shocked the hell out of him at the time by giving him a hug and a kiss and saying he was a good boy and nothing else.

Alright, that had been the last time he'd brought her money, and maybe it was almost a year ago. But, Phil had come into the picture right after that. What the hell did she need him for with Phil around?

Fucking Phil.

Fucking Phil and the goddamn _baby._

She didn't need him, she didn't need his father, she didn't need Tulsa, she probably wouldn't need a job. She'd traded up for a money-making husband and the life of a happy housewife.

Dallas stood up and paced back and forth for a minute, but he had too much anger for the closet-sized room. It took him only a second of hesitation before he opened the door and stalked out.

The bitch was sitting at the table in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. There was a half-empty whiskey bottle on the table, and a glass with half an inch left.

Dallas stopped short and glared at her. Fucking pregnant, and the bitch still couldn't stop drinking.

She looked over at him with red-rimmed eyes. Her blonde hair, the same as his, was unbrushed and stuck up in the back. She liked haircuts about as much as he did, only her fucking boyfriend didn't strap _her_ to the kitchen chair once a month trying to make her "presentable" for school. Dallas had a scar a fucking inch long on his ear from where the bastard had clipped him with the scissors.

That'd be one good thing about Tulsa. His father never made him do anything like that, and sure wouldn't think about haircuts. He probably didn't even know Dallas was blond for Christ's sakes, and a blind man could tell you that.

Dallas braced himself for more of her raging, but she just took a drag and kept staring at him with the same blue eyes he saw in the mirror every morning.

"Where's Phil?" he said finally.

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "He still scares the shit outta you, huh, tough guy?"

It was too stupid a thing to say for him to respond to. He took the whiskey bottle away instead, putting it on the top shelf out of reach, while she was drunk, anyway.

She chuckled while he climbed down from the counter. "I'm not drunk, Dally. It was just one drink."

He picked up the glass and sipped from it, and she swiped it away.

"Better me than you," he told her.

"Bullshit," she said, but gave it back to him.

He sipped down the rest of it cautiously. She'd been the one to give him his first taste of alcohol, but that had been a long time ago. She'd laughed like a maniac when he'd spit out the beer, saying it tasted like dead flies.

"And don't you forget it," she'd said. "This stuff ain't for kids."

But she hadn't had much of a problem with him tasting anything else. Maybe it was because she was young enough to remember what it was like to be a teenager – she wasn't hardly thirty yet. Or maybe she was just too drunk herself to notice.

Phil had had a problem with it.

"You want something to eat?" she said, as he finished her drink. "I'm starving."

Dallas picked up the pot and found a can of chicken noodle in the cupboard. No need to say anything. He didn't feel like talking. Bitch could be as friendly as she wanted, it didn't change the fact that she was sending him away.

"I can do that, Dallas."

Didn't make a move to stop him once while he heated up the soup though. Bitch was all talk.

He set a bowl in front her and she smirked. "What am I gonna do without you to heat up a can of Campbell's for me, Dally."

"You got your white-collar businessman to take care of you now."

She gave a short barking laugh. "Phil ownes the diner, honey. That don't exactly make him upper class."

He ate his soup in three minutes. He hadn't even realized he'd been hungry, but he should have known. He was always hungry these days.

"Why did you do it?" she said suddenly. "You knew it'd be the last straw. You knew it'd drive me crazy, you ending up in jail again, and for what? A couple of dollars?"

The first time he'd gotten hauled in, she'd stood outside the jail cell door, smirking at him.

"I oughtta leave you in there, you stupid fucking kid," she'd said. "Or you'll only be back in a couple months."

He'd begged her not to, so she took him home that night. And she was right about him ending up back in jail, only it didn't take him a couple months.

"Why do you care why I end up in jail," he growled. "You don't care about me. You don't care about _anything_."

"You're just like your daddy," she said simply. "That's how you want to be, you're better off going back home and live with him."

"I'm just the same as _you_," he said.

"You shut your mouth."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. It was stupid, but he didn't want to go back to his room. It wasn't often it was just the two of them anymore, even if they were just sitting there hating each other.

She cleared her throat. "I been thinking up names for the baby."

She pulled a crumpled list from the pocket of her dressing gown.

Dallas looked, in spite of himself. He hadn't had much to do with the baby. It wasn't even alive yet. Sure didn't feel like he was related to it.

_Jenny … Rebecca …_

"You want a girl," he said, suddenly aware that the baby had to be a him or a her. It couldn't be an "it" forever.

"Mmhmm," his mother said. "A pretty little ballerina." No fucking shame.

"What if it's a boy?"

She tapped the list.

"Michael? That's boring."

"It's from the good book."

"The _what_?"

"The Bible."

"Never heard of it."

She slapped the back of his head. "Don't be a heathen."

Dallas rubbed his head. She was always slapping him, but it never really hurt.

"What do you think? Got any ideas?"

_Jenny … Rebecca … Michael …_

He wrote down a name.

"Rose?"

It was her name. It only made sense to name the baby that.

"Why not? People name their kids after themselves all the time. It's an okay name."

She leaned back and looked at him, and he looked right back. God, she was fat.

"You know, you can be so stupidly sweet sometimes," she said, and lit another cigarette.

He made a face and cleared the dishes, just for something to do. She was going to cry again, he knew it.

She didn't used to be such a crybaby. She'd been pretty tough when they'd first got to New York. It was Phil and his dumb fucking manners that turned her into a pile of mush.

Well, it hadn't worked on him, no matter how many times Phil pulled that father-son bullshit. He didn't play catch with his last dad, he wasn't about to play it with a fake one.

Dallas almost jumped out of his skin when he felt her arms go around his shoulders. She set her chin on his shoulder and he could hear her breathing hard. _Damn_. She _was_ crying.

"Baby," she murmured into his hair. "What did I do to fuck you up so bad?"

It made him angry. Bitch had to take credit for everything.

"Dunno. But you better figure it out before the next one shows up."

She hugged him tight. "Yeah, I'll do that."

She leaned against the counter while he washed the dishes, rubbing her stomach. She really was fucking huge.

"Won't be long now," she murmured.

"And you'll be a mother," he said, testing her.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to that."

Bitch. _Bitch._

He slammed the bowl into the sink.

She laughed suddenly. "Don't be so dramatic. You practically chose this yourself." She put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not the ballerina type. You'll be happier in Tulsa."

"_You'll_ be happier when I'm in Tulsa."

She nodded. "But I'll miss you, too, even if you are a little shit."

"I won't miss you. Not one bit."

He wouldn't. He'd have his dad, who was good enough for a roof over his head and enough booze and cigarettes and money to steal, he'd reckon. He'd have his friends, who he'd missed enough in the past three years to make him want to actually take that train back to Tulsa rather than stick it out in New York on his own.

But she would miss him, alright. She would notice when he was gone, and there was no one around to bitch at, and no one around to just leave her be, and no one around who wouldn't mind when she was drinking or swearing. All she'd have would be stupid sentimental Phil, and – if his mother got her way – a stupid little girl baby.

Her little ballerina. Her real kid, her real family. His little sister.

He heard the door to the apartment open and it took him all of ten seconds to be back in his room in bed. There was no point in fighting more tonight – he was too damn tired for that – and if he saw Phil's ugly face again he'd go crazy.

"How's my girl?"

Phil meant his mother.

"Your girls are just fine."

He was already out. There wasn't even a real kid yet, and she'd already managed to kick him out of his own home. He hoped it was a boy after all – that'd teach her. But somehow, he figured she'd get her way and have that little girl. Dallas was pretty sure he'd never find out, and he was glad. He was damn glad. He didn't need a little sister, and he didn't need his mother, and he didn't need a goddamn substitute dad when he had his own. He didn't need this home.

He was out. She was in.

Dallas rolled on his back and closed his eyes. The bitch was right. He'd be glad to get back to Tulsa, after all.


End file.
